


beneath the leaves that color you

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:43:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5073127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant hates it when he has no idea what to expect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beneath the leaves that color you

**Author's Note:**

> I started working on this in JUNE and I cannot begin to tell you how much of a relief it is to have it finished. *throws confetti* Yay!
> 
> Title is from Sean Watkins' _Hiding_. Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review!

Grant isn’t really sure what he’s walking into when he goes out to meet Simmons.

He’s _ready_ for just about anything, of course, from another attempt on his life to unconditional surrender. He just has no idea what to _expect_.

And he hates it when he has no idea what to expect.

So he’s a little on edge as he crosses the street. Simmons watches him approach placidly, making no move to stand from the curb she’s been sitting on—the curb _directly across the street from his headquarters_ —for the last two hours.

“Simmons,” he says, stopping carefully out of her reach.

“Hello, Ward,” she says, and extends the bag of chips she’s holding. “Crisp?”

“No, thanks."

She shrugs and eats another. “Suit yourself.”

“Is that all you’re here for?” he asks, rocking back on his heels. He does another scan of the surrounding area, looking for any signs of a trap, but there’s nothing. “To share your snack?”

“Not at all,” she says. “But I’ve been waiting for a while. I was feeling peckish.”

“Fair enough.” He watches her for a moment, evaluating. She’s not as relaxed as the conversation would suggest—not at all—but she’s still closer to it than he’s really comfortable with. He’d feel better if she weren’t so calm: if she’s not scared, it’s because she’s got some kind of advantage. “So why are you here, then?”

She sighs and crumples up the empty chip bag. After tossing it into a nearby trashcan, she scrubs her hands against her thighs in a move he judges to be half honest attempt to rid them of crumbs and half nervous fidgeting.

“I want to offer you a deal,” she says.

He doesn’t bother to hide his skepticism. “Really.”

“Really.” She takes a deep breath, then frowns at him. “Would you like to sit? You’re making me nervous, looming over me like that.”

“Last time we met you tried to kill me,” he reminds her. “I’m okay with making you nervous.”

“I suppose I can’t argue that,” she mutters, but she looks dissatisfied. She scrubs her hands against her thighs again. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

“Why don’t we start with you coming inside?” he suggests. “We can discuss this in my office.”

She eyes the building behind him warily. “How likely is that to end with me being brainwashed and/or otherwise harmed?”

“Depends on how good of a deal you’ve got for me.”

“That’s fair,” she says, climbing to her feet. “After you, then.”

It’s a surprise, and an argument in favor of this not being a trap. If she were only here to lure him out into the open, she’d definitely put up more of a fight before walking right into his base.

Still, he’s not about to give her his back. (Markham’s standing by with a sniper rifle, of course, but it’s the principle of the thing.)

“No, please,” he says, and gestures. “After you.”

She tenses a little as she passes him, but otherwise shows no apprehension about approaching an enemy stronghold. She doesn’t hesitate at all when they reach the building, either; she walks right through the door he holds open for her.

She does pause in the lobby, but only to take in the decorating scheme.

“Subtle,” she says, staring at the large, tentacled logo in the center of the floor.

“It’s tradition,” he shrugs, and glances at the guard behind the security desk. He gets a nod; she’s clean, then—no weapons showing up on the scanner. Interesting. “This way.”

“Do you make your scientists wear black lab coats?” she asks as she follows him into the elevator.

“Nah.” He hits the button for the top floor and then tucks his hands into his pockets. “That felt a little too on-the-nose. The lab coats are the standard white.”

“Oh, good,” she says. “I always thought that was a bit much.”

The silence that follows is pretty awkward, and Grant surprises himself by being a little sad about it. Once upon a time, Simmons was the easiest of the team to spend time with.

He doesn’t regret his choices—save for one very bad decision made in Spain—but he does sometimes miss what he gave up along the way.

The elevator opens on the waiting area outside his office, and the two agents sitting against the wall spring to their feet. He passes by them without a second glance; he’s gonna give it a few more hours before he deals with them. It’ll give them time to sweat and him time to decide exactly what their punishment for their failure should be.

He doesn’t think Simmons even notices them; she’s more visibly nervous, here in the heart of his base, and the tension in her shoulders only increases when he locks his office door behind them.

“So,” he says, resting his weight against the edge of his desk. “Why do you want a deal?”

She sinks onto one of the visitor’s chairs—oddly enough, she chooses the one closer to him, so her knees brush his legs as she sits—and abruptly drops her show of nonchalance.

“I’m tired,” she says, frankly. “This past year has been…one thing after another, and I…” She gestures helplessly. “I’m tired of fighting and of looking over my shoulder—and of betrayal.” She grimaces. “I am so sick of betrayal that I couldn’t possibly express it to you, in fact.”

“Huh,” he says. He leans back on his hands and considers her. She definitely _looks_ sincere, but he’s learned his lesson about underestimating her. “Why come to me? If you want out, why not talk to SHIELD?”

“I have,” she says, crossing her arms. If she’s trying to look casual, she fails; mostly, she looks like she’s hugging herself, and it makes a pretty pathetic picture. “I tendered my resignation, so to speak, yesterday. But…” She shrugs. “I’ve made an enemy of HYDRA and, separately, of you. I want to clear the air—make certain that you won’t be coming after me.”

Fair. She’s not at the top of his list, but she _is_ on it.

“Okay.” He’s a long way from convinced, but he’s willing to listen. “What are you offering?”

She takes a deep breath, holds it, and then lets it out slowly—and shakily.

“I imagine you know by now that Bobbi and Hunter both survived your trap in Spain,” she says.

Fury swells in his chest, but he tamps it down. “Yes.”

“They’ve taken personal time,” she says. “Whilst Bobbi recovers from her injuries and Hunter attempts to regain his ability to pretend he isn’t madly in love with her.” Her fingers dig into her upper arms, hard enough to whiten the skin. “I can give you their location.”

The urge to accept right then and there is so strong that he literally has to bite his tongue not to. That Morse and Hunter are still alive—off on vacation together, of all fucking things—when Kara is dead is infuriating. Morse, who betrayed her and left her to be broken, doesn’t _deserve_ to be alive—and she definitely doesn’t deserve to still have the love of her fucking life while Grant’s alone.

But Simmons wanting out is one thing—she really does look tired, with the shadows under her eyes and the slump to her shoulders and the pallor of her skin. Being willing to betray two members of her team is something entirely different.

“Really?” he asks, once he’s got himself under control. “You expect me to believe you’re gonna hand your friends over to me?”

She swallows, eyes skittering away. “I’m not proud of it.” Her voice shakes. “However, it seemed the most likely leverage, so—”

“You’re gonna condemn two of your friends to slow and extremely unpleasant deaths because you want a vacation?” 

Her eyes are tear-filled when they meet his again, but she doesn’t flinch under his disbelieving stare.

“SHIELD...it’s _killing_ me,” she stresses. “Loyalty has kept me in place this long, but sooner or later, one has to see to one’s own well-being—and it’s well past time I looked to mine.”

The Simmons he knew before wouldn’t put her own well-being over a mortal enemy’s, let alone that of two very good friends. But then, the Simmons he knew before would never have tried to kill him, either.

He pushes off his desk and crouches in front of her, resting his hands on her knees more to see how she’ll react than for balance. And her reaction is telling; she tenses, but doesn’t flinch or try to pull away at all.

This close, she looks more than tired—she looks exhausted. And there’s none of the hate he saw in her eyes the last time they spoke. This isn’t the woman who called him a monster and dared him to kill her.

She’s broken. And he’s pretty sure she’s totally sincere.

What she’s _not_ is totally honest.

“I don’t disagree,” he says. “SHIELD has let you down before, hasn’t it? You’ve been a lot more loyal to it than it has to you.” He squeezes her knees. “Which is why I know that you didn’t just wake up this morning and decide to turn traitor. What’s this really about, Simmons?”

She bites her lip. Her hands fall away from her arms to curl around the arms of the chair instead. “Do you really need to know?”

“If you want a deal?” he asks. “Yeah. I do.”

She’s still hesitating, and he’s pretty sure he knows why.

“Simmons,” he says. “You’re in my office, on the top floor of my base. There are more than two hundred highly-trained men and women in this building, all of whom are totally loyal to me. I literally could _not_ have more leverage right now.”

“I wouldn’t be so certain of that,” she mutters. Her fingers tap on the armrests. “I suppose at this point it’s too late to change my mind.”

It’s not a question, but he answers it anyway. “Yep.”

She takes a deep breath, and he can _see_ her steeling herself. Whatever it is she’s not saying, it’s big—but that was obvious from the moment she said she wanted a deal. He can’t even imagine what could make her desperate enough to bargain with _him._  

This is sure to be a doozy.

“I…” she swallows. “I’m pregnant.”

Well. That’s not what he was expecting.

It explains her hesitation, though. That’s a hell of a lot of leverage she’s just handed him.

“Huh.” He leans back a little to give her a once-over, looking for any signs. Maybe her face is a little rounder than it was the last time he saw her, but other than that, there’s nothing. She must not be very far along. “Fitz’s?”

She laughs, humorlessly. “No.”

“Whose, then?” he asks.

“He was…” Her eyes drift away, towards the window. “A mistake. A good one,” she adds, the hint of a wistful smile tugging at her lips, “but—just a mistake.”

One night stand, then. Any other day that might have been a surprise, but stacked against the fact that she came here to betray her friends, Simmons having unprotected sex with a stranger just doesn’t seem all that out-of-character.

The point is, if the father is someone she can write off as a mistake, he can’t be anyone important. He dismisses his half-formed thoughts of using her as leverage and returns his attention to the decision he needs to make.

Morse and Hunter in exchange for leaving her be is a pretty good deal. She’s not that far up his list; single attempt on his life aside, she’s never done much against him. He’s still fond of her, in the way he’s fond of Skye and Fitz, and killing her would, honestly, be more about hurting May and Coulson than about Simmons herself.

It would be no hardship to let her go.

But she’s desperate—so desperate that she’s making a deal with _Grant_ , of all people, giving up two of her friends in exchange for her own safety. She’s desperate and she’s broken and she’s right here in his reach—in his office, even.

“I’ll take that location,” he says, and watches the tension seep out of her. “But I’d like to make a counter-offer.”

The tension comes back. “What sort of counter-offer?”

“Even if I leave you alone,” he says, “even if _SHIELD_ leaves you alone, you won’t necessarily be safe. You’re one of the brightest minds on the planet, Jemma.” She twitches. “You’re always gonna be in high demand, no matter how many deals you make.”

Simmons goes still.

“You don’t need a deal,” he continues, rubbing her knees soothingly. “You need protection.”

“And you’re going to protect me, is that it?” she asks.

She’s trying to sound derisive, but she doesn’t quite manage it. Maybe she misses the old days, too—the days when she would’ve taken it for granted that he would protect her.

Or maybe not.

“If you’ll let me.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart, I’m sure,” she murmurs, and he studies her, curious. There’s something in her eyes he can’t quite read, and that’s never happened before. Not with Simmons.

But whatever she’s feeling, what she’s thinking isn’t wrong. He never does anything for nothing; if he’s gonna protect her, it’s only natural he should get something in return, right?

“I’m sure we can come to an arrangement,” he says. “I’ve got some labs in dire need of geniuses to staff them; my current crew is full of morons.”

Admittedly, it’s kind of an exaggeration—but then, isn’t _everyone_ a moron, compared to her?

In any case, she’s plainly unimpressed.

“Even _if_ I could trust you to keep me safe,” she says, “that would still leave me with the same problem I had working for SHIELD: there’s too great a risk of getting caught in the crossfire.”

He smiles. She eyes him warily.

“Didn’t it strike you as a little suspicious,” he asks, “how easy it was to find my base?”

The look on her face clearly says it didn’t—and that it’s striking her now that it _should’ve_.

“This is…let’s call it my public base,” he tells her. “I’ve got dozens of other, hidden bases—bases nobody knows about and nobody can find.” He rubs her knees again. “You won’t have to worry about getting caught in the crossfire or kidnapped by old enemies or asked to put your life at risk. It’ll just be you and a lab and the best doctors I can bring you, whenever you need them.”

“A lab,” she says flatly. “In which I presume you expect me to do _your_ work? Work that will undoubtedly go against everything I believe in.”

“Well, yeah,” he admits. He thinks of bringing up the whole _handing her friends over to be tortured_ thing again, but decides it’s better not to antagonize her at this point. “So I guess the question is, what’s more important? Your morals?” He places a deliberately gentle hand on her stomach. She stops breathing. “Or your kid?”

She stares down at him, wide-eyed and frozen, and point made, he pushes to his feet. The breath shudders out of her as he rounds his desk, and he knows he’s won.

Still, he’s expecting to have to push it a little further, so her, “Fine,” takes him by surprise.

“On one condition,” she adds, leveling him with a challenging look. He spreads his hands, inviting her to continue. “I don’t want SHIELD to know.”

“Well, I wasn’t planning on holding a press conference, if that’s what you mean,” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “I mean _at all_. I know how much you like to gloat, and I don’t want you throwing my—my—”

“Defection?” he offers innocently.

She glares. “—my _presence here_ in their faces.”

Well, that’s a bummer. Still, it’s not like he’ll have nothing else to gloat about—he’s gonna be providing full details of everything he does to Hunter and Morse, for one—so why not?

(And hell, it’s not like she’ll know if he breaks his word, should the temptation become too great to resist.)

“Fair enough,” he says. “SHIELD won’t hear about you from me.”

“Or from anyone who works for you.”

“Or from anyone who works for me,” he echoes, making a little x over his heart. “Promise.”

She’s silent for a long time. He waits.

“Then, yes,” she says finally. “I accept your counter-offer.”

“Great.” He takes a seat behind his desk, scrolling through his mental list of bases. “I’m guessing you’ve got a bag stashed somewhere?”

“Um,” she says, caught off guard by the sudden change of subject, “all of my things are at my hotel.”

“And which hotel would that be?”

“The Motel 6 on Adams,” she says, and he makes a face.

“That’s not a hotel,” he corrects, “that’s a death trap.” Honestly. It’s a good thing he’s here to save her from herself; imagine willingly subjecting yourself to a place like _that_. “I’ll send someone to get your stuff for you. Room number?”

She hesitates for a second—probably imagining all kinds of nefarious plans he might have for the information, knowing her—and then sighs.

“137,” she says.

“Great,” he says again, and hits the button on his phone to send an alert to Evie’s that he has need of her. “Now, I’ll take that location.”

He’s more than half expecting her to wimp out at the last second, but happily, she doesn’t. She has to fight back tears while she does it, yeah, but she tells him exactly where to find Hunter and Morse. Out of respect for her delicate state, he makes sure to hide his reaction to said information, the vicious glee that bubbles up in his chest to offset the rage that hasn’t left him for a single second since Kara’s death.

He’s gonna have a lot of fun with those two. Every single ounce of pain—of _grief_ —he’s felt since he was tricked into taking Kara’s life, they’re gonna experience ten-fold. Hunter’ll die first, of course, so Grant can see the look on Morse’s face when it happens, but it’ll be a long, long time before he lets them reach that point.

And he’s not gonna forget that Simmons is the one who’s made it possible. He’ll keep his promise to her, make sure she and her kid are well protected.

It’s the least he can do, really.

There’s a knock on the door just as Simmons finishes regaining her composure, and Grant pats her on the shoulder on his way to unlock it—noting with interest the way she continues to fail to flinch at his touch.

“Evie,” he says, when he opens the door to his assistant, “good.” He returns to his desk, motioning to Simmons. “This is Jemma Simmons. She’s an old friend—and our newest biochemist. Simmons, this is my assistant, Evie Peters.”

Simmons seems more than a little thrown by the idea of him having an assistant, but she manages a friendly enough greeting, which Evie returns before looking to Grant expectantly.

“I’m sending her to Adrestia base,” he says. “Have Parker ready to design a lab for her, and send a team to room 137 at the Adams Street Motel 6 for her stuff.”

“Yes, sir,” Evie says, tapping away at her tablet. “Do you want me to arrange transport, or will you be escorting Doctor Simmons yourself?”

“No,” he says. “I’ve got other things to take care of—which reminds me, I’m gonna need Ortilla, Hicks, and Warrington here in two hours.” Taking _any_ back-up, let alone that much, grates, but he’s not gonna risk Hunter and Morse getting away again. “We’ll send Aldridge with Simmons. In the meantime, why don’t you show her to some temporary quarters, let her freshen up a bit?”

He doesn’t want her to have time for second thoughts. Better to get her squared away as soon as possible, and in the meantime the longer she spends with him, the more likely she is to regret what she’s agreed to.

“Of course,” Evie says, and turns a professionally distant smile on Simmons. “If you’ll follow me, Doctor Simmons?”

“Thank you,” she says, standing slowly. She glances at Grant, the same unreadable _something_ from earlier in her eyes.

She’s still hiding something, that’s for sure. Between her unexpectedly quick agreement to work for him, the relative lack of hate and terror, and that look…there’s something he’s missed. There’s gotta be.

But asking questions will just put her on her guard, so he gives her a nice smile instead of pressing her.

“I’m looking forward to working with you again, Simmons,” he says honestly. “I’ll come check on you in a week or so, see how you’re settling in.”

She opens her mouth and then almost immediately closes it, throat working silently. In the end, all she does is nod and follow Evie out.

He waits until the door closes fully behind them, then reaches for his desk phone.

Simmons was just a little _too_ quick to agree to work for him, and he wants to know why. She’s a much better liar than she used to be, surviving for months in the old HYDRA is proof enough of that; it’s not out of the question that she managed to get one past him. And if he’s any judge, the thing she’s most likely to lie about is the identity of her baby’s father.

Luckily, he has ways of checking that.

 

 

A man can’t run an operation as large as HYDRA on fear alone, so Grant offers his people a number of benefits to keep them happy. One of those benefits is a complete medical staff that's always on call, eliminating the need for health insurance.

And it is a  _complete_ medical staff—including a number of obstetricians. Obstetricians who, since they work for _HYDRA_ , aren't about to get tripped up on the ethics of performing a paternity test on a fetus without its mother’s consent.

(He was a little worried about how they’d pull that off, but it turns out it’s possible to get fetal DNA from the mother’s blood, so a simple, routine blood draw is all it takes.)

Of course, a paternity test presents the same problem as a DNA test: if you don’t have a sample from the guilty party, it’s useless.

But there’s always the chance that he _does_ have the DNA of the father on file—if it’s one of his people, a _former_ HYDRA agent, or a SHIELD agent, he'll be able to ID the guy. And if not, at least he’ll have eliminated all of those as possibilities.

So when he has the test run, he’s hoping for a match, if not necessarily expecting one.

He’s _definitely_ not expecting for the match to be _him_.

“This is bullshit,” he says, tossing the results back at the man who presented them. “I’ve never had sex with Simmons. You made a mistake.”

Carson flinches at Grant’s dark tone, but he stands his ground. “We—we ran the test ten times, sir, on four separate samples. It came back the same every time.”

Fucking ridiculous. How much is he paying these people?

Although...

He scrubs a hand over his mouth, thinking of the way Simmons stopped breathing when he touched her stomach. And he knew she was hiding something. Could it be—?

No. _No_. He’s _never had sex with her_. Ever. Not when they were teammates and definitely not in the last four months. It's impossible.

...But it’s not out of the question she might’ve gone mad scientist with it, right? Artificial insemination, that’s a thing—although how she’d get her hands on his genetic material or, more importantly, why she’d even _want_ it…

It doesn’t add up.

“Whatever,” he says, and waves a dismissive hand at the trembling Carson. “Go away.”

There’s only one thing for it: he’s gonna have to confront her. But he doesn’t want to do it while he’s so off-balance; he needs to come at her from a position of strength. He needs to be in complete control of himself.

So he thinks he’ll spend a little time with his guests in the basement before he goes to see Simmons. Having a nice, fresh memory of causing pain to her friends will help keep him calm, no matter _what_ that conversation brings.

 

 

When Grant _does_ confront Simmons, he doesn’t beat around the bush. He announces his presence by dropping a copy of the results on her lab bench, startling her out of a science haze.

“I knew you were hiding _something_ ,” he says, by way of a greeting, “but I gotta say, this? This took me by surprise.”

Once she’s managed to steady her breathing (which takes a minute; she must have been really deep in whatever she's working on) she picks up the results with a puzzled frown. She’s a fast reader; it doesn’t take long for that to melt into shocked horror, which she quickly covers with outrage.

“You ran a paternity test without my consent?” she demands. “That is just—just—” she sputters for a second “—I don’t even have _words_ for it!”

“Oh yeah?” he asks. She shrinks back as he grips the counter behind her, effectively caging her in. “What about not telling me you’re carrying my kid? You got words for that?”

At first, she’s frozen, eyes flickering from him to the door as she obviously tries to decide whether to lie or risk trying to flee. He sees the exact moment she decides on neither; her head falls forward as she breathes out slowly, and when she looks up again, her expression can only be described as defeated.

“I’m sure you can understand that I have questions,” he says. “What with how we’ve never fucked and all.”

She sighs and presses gently against his chest in a silent request for space. There’s no need to keep her literally trapped now that he’s managed it metaphorically, so he grants it, letting go of the counter and stepping back.

As soon as he does, she sinks onto a lab stool.

“It’s not yours,” she says, “precisely.”

What the hell does she mean, _precisely_? He lets his expression speak for itself.

“There was—I—” She stops, takes a deep breath, and tries again. “Not long after the events in Spain, I ran afoul of an alien artifact.”

Oh, great. Nothing good ever comes of a story that starts like _that_.

“It…well, I suppose you could say it abducted me.” She smiles humorlessly. “To simplify, it was a trans-dimensional portal device. It…transported me into an alternate reality.”

…What the fuck.

“Are you saying some kind of—of _other me_ knocked you up?” he asks. She’s gotta be kidding him with this.

“I’m afraid so,” she says, resting a protective hand over her stomach. She’s been working for him for a month and is just barely showing now; if her shirt was a little looser, he wouldn’t be able to tell at all. “Things were different in that reality. _You_ were different.” The look she gives him is somewhere between disdainful and, interestingly, longing. “Our doubles weren’t enemies, they were friends—and mine had died years before. He missed her.”

“So you jumped into bed with him?” he asks skeptically. An alternate reality isn’t _that_ far-fetched, considering some of the things he’s seen, but he doesn’t buy it would be that easy for _any_ version of him to get her into bed. Not after everything that’s happened between them.

“He won me over,” she says, with a sad little smile. “Eventually. Time moved differently in the other reality; I spent years there. We…had a life together.”

He studies her, watching the way the fingers of her left hand curl in. Not like she’s making a fist, more like...

“You were married?” he asks.

Her bottom lip trembles as she nods. “I didn’t think I would ever make it back here, and—well. Once he managed to convince me he wasn’t _evil_ , we grew very close. Marriage seemed the logical next step.”

The waver in her voice says there was nothing _logical_ about it, but he doesn’t call her on it. The suspicion that she’s actually being honest is creeping in, and it’s got his head spinning.

The emotion wouldn’t be enough on its own, not after she actually managed to lie to him about the father in the first place. But weirdly, having feelings for him—or for someone who wore his face—would explain a lot. Her relatively friendly (or at least not downright hostile) attitude towards him, for one. The fact that he’s tried more than once to freak her out with physical proximity and it’s never worked before today.

And, maybe, why she ever approached him at all.

“This is why you offered me that deal,” he says more than asks. “Not because you were afraid I’d come after you.”

“Not _just_ because I was afraid you would come after me,” she corrects, voice subdued. “It was a very real fear—but no. It wasn’t all of it.” Hugging herself, she looks away. “I needed to see you, to remind myself that you weren’t—weren’t _him_. I could tell myself a million times that the Grant Ward in this reality wasn’t the man I loved, but it didn’t make a difference. I needed actual evidence.”

“Oh yeah? And how’d that work for you?”

“Very well, thank you,” she says, a little stiffly. “You’ve been kinder than I expected, but you’re still not him.”

Fair enough. He leans back against the counter, mind racing. Between the emotion, the things it explains, and, of course, the DNA test, he’s pretty sure she’s telling the truth.

Now what the hell to do about it?

She says the baby’s not his, but he’s not so sure. Even if it wasn’t _him_ she slept with, it was still a _version_ of him. The kid’s gonna be half him. And he’s guessing babies don’t care so much about which reality their parents are from.

Parents. He’s gonna be a _father_.

Kind of.

He’s never given much thought to having kids. The life he leads? Children don’t fit into heading HYDRA, and they sure as hell don’t fit into specialist work.

But now, presented with it as a done deal…

It’s a hell of a shock to realize he _wants_ it. Not just that he wants kids—he wants _this_ kid.

“You’re wrong,” he says, softly. Simmons watches him warily as he steps into her space. “That kid is definitely mine.”

“No.” She’s off the stool at once, and he follows—at a carefully non-threatening distance—as she backs away. “It’s really, really not.”

“Genetics don’t lie,” he says. “That paternity test names me the father, plain and simple.”

“ _My_ Grant was a good man,” she says, sharply, as her back hits the wall. “You’re a monster—a murderer. I’m not letting you take—”

“Hey,” he says, catching the hand she’s using to poke him (pretty hard, actually) in the chest. “I’m not interested in stealing your baby, Jemma.”

It might be down to the use of her first name, but somehow she looks even _less_ reassured.

“You’re that kid’s mother, and nothing’s gonna change that,” he promises. “I just wanna be involved.”

“No.” She shakes her head. “No. Absolutely not.”

He catches her other hand as it comes up, probably intending to shove him away, and squeezes it gently.

“Listen,” he says, voice pitched low and soothing, “I can’t speak for your Grant. But for me? If my Kara was in some other reality, pregnant and alone, it would be a relief to know there was someone looking out for her—especially if that someone was another me. Letting me be this baby’s father isn’t betraying him.”

Her mouth tightens, and he knows he’s hit on her main problem. She can say what she wants about morals, but hers are obviously more flexible than she’s willing to admit; she’s working for him, isn’t she? No, her problem isn’t him being a murderer. It’s the idea of what the other him would think.

He can work with that.

The mention of Kara was a good play, too—there was sympathy in her expression, even if just for a second.

“Let me take care of you,” he murmurs. “Of our _child_. It’s what he would want.”

“I—I don’t—”

“You don’t have to do this alone,” he says, and at that, the tears that have been swimming in her eyes for the last five minutes spill over.

He pulls her away from the wall and hugs her close, and she doesn’t fight him. Instead, she clings tight, sobbing into his chest. It’s not exactly a surprise; she’s clearly been grieving this other him. Add to that her pregnancy and probably some lingering guilt over handing Hunter and Morse to him…well. It was only a matter of time before she broke down.

He holds her through it, of course, rubbing her back and comforting her with soothing nothings.

It’s…interesting.

He’s only held her once before, and as _that_ was in the middle of saving her life tens of thousands of feet above the ocean, he had other things on his mind than the sensation itself. Now, he’s surprised to find how much he enjoys it.

This close, their difference in size is even more obvious than usual, and she feels downright tiny in his arms. Tiny and delicate and, considering the way she’s sobbing, fragile. It feels like she might shatter if he holds on too tight.

It’s nothing at all like holding Kara was, and that’s as much a relief as it is painful.

He misses Kara like a lost limb. He misses her smile and her laugh, the way her eyes went so bright every time she took another step towards piecing herself back together, and, most of all, the way she _needed_ him.

Simmons can’t give him that. She doesn’t have Kara’s smile or Kara’s laugh or Kara’s eyes, and he wouldn’t want her if she did.

But she does need him.

And Kara wouldn’t begrudge him this. She wouldn’t want him to be alone forever. She’d want him to move on.

Who better to move on with than the mother of his child?

Eventually, Simmons’ tears peter out. It takes a while, but he holds her the whole time. He’s hyper aware of every second—her hitching breaths, the press of her breasts against his chest, the tremors wracking her body as she sobs—and every second firms his resolve.

She needs him.

Once her crying’s done, she stays where she is, secure in his arms, head resting against his shoulder. It’s a good sign that she doesn’t immediately draw away, and he decides it’s safe to push her a little.

“So?” he asks, gently stroking her hair. “What do you say? Let me take care of you?”

She sighs, and he’s forced to shut down his reaction to her breath brushing over his neck for fear of scaring her off.

“You can be involved,” she allows. “I suppose making sure the baby has a father isn’t the worst thing in the world. But…” She finally loosens her death-grip on the back of his shirt, and her hands slide down his back, around his sides, and back up to his chest, leaving his skin prickling in their wake. “I don’t need you to take care of me. I don’t need taking care of at all.”

With that, she pushes him away, and he reluctantly allows it.

Without her warmth, he’s chilled. He forces himself to ignore it.

“Of course not,” he says soothingly. It was never gonna be that easy; Simmons isn't exactly a pushover. And while everything that happened between her and the other him might’ve eased the sting of what Grant’s done to her, it didn’t erase it. Getting her to a point where she’ll accept his care will take time. “But you’ll let me contribute, won’t you? Babies need all kinds of stuff—I can help with that.”

She moves past him, back towards the lab bench.

“One could argue that you’re contributing by paying my salary,” she says, as she wipes her face with a hand towel. Her voice is wrecked, but with the tear tracks gone from her cheeks she _looks_ a little less fragile, even if she still sounds it. “So…”

“Come on,” he coaxes, giving her his best puppy face. Harmless is gonna be the name of the game with her, at least for the next few weeks; she’s already trusting him to protect her physically, but emotionally’s gonna be a sticking point. “That doesn’t count and you know it.”

She smiles to herself, just a little, as she looks away. “Very well. You may contribute monetarily.”

“Thank you.”

There’s more he wants to push for—names and nurseries and moving her to the base he actually lives in—but he knows it’s way too soon for any of that. He needs to take this victory and retreat.

(And then maybe go drink until he passes out, because this is a _lot_ to take in, he’s gonna be a _father_ , he’s having a kid with _Jemma Simmons_ , holy fuck—)

So, at her quiet, “You’re welcome,” he crosses the room to join her at her lab bench.

“I have some things to take care of,” he says, picking her phone up off the far side of the counter. “And I’m guessing you could use some space from me right now. So I’m gonna go, but…” He opens her contact list and adds a few numbers from memory. “I’m giving you some numbers. My personal line, my assistant’s cell, and my second’s cell. You need anything, day or night, you call me. And if I don’t answer, you call one of them. Okay?”

“Okay,” she says, but it’s a thoughtless echo—a polite response, the kind you give when you’re not intending to follow through.

“Hey.” He angles his head to meet her eyes. “I mean it, okay? I wanna know.”

She searches his eyes for a long moment, and at the sincerity he makes sure to project, her face relaxes into a genuine smile.

“Okay,” she repeats—this time with much more warmth.

“Okay,” he says, and sets her phone down. “I’ll come by tomorrow, if that’s all right? We can talk more?”

“Yes,” she says, “that’s fine.”

He wants desperately to reach out, to touch her again—to leave her with a physical sign of reassurance. But it’s too soon for that. She’s skittish, for several unfortunately understandable reasons, and he’s gotta be careful not to push her. So, unhappily, he restricts himself to a single nod before he walks out.

It’s not easy, not at all, and he hates the necessity of it.

But that’s all right. It’s just a matter of winning her over—and hey, he’s apparently already done it once.

They’ll be together in no time.


End file.
